Create own bridge template? Is it possible? And some more question

[z0rge]

Hello. 

I have prestressed span of a bridge. Most part of that is a cast-in-place concret - deck, griders, bariers and diaphragms is a one peace. Metall part is just railings and  bearings. And I need that outside wall of span will be the one surface (planing to make it rounded).

So is it possible to create my own bridge template??

Understand that I can split it to a components but here is two problems:

1) If the components are separete its connecting are awful even it's pretty simple bridge.  It's don't suite for production vizualisation. May be someone know how to fix bariers, railings and other stuff on the road? 

2) Asfalt layer is covering hole surface of a deck and  bariers placing on them. It's don't suite for my situation. By the way, who know what is the thickness of asfalt part in IW? Do not understand how to align deck to it. 

Or may be community can suggest me another way to do that?

Thanks in advance,

Alex

[ara.ashikian]

In most typical cases, girders are placed below the deck.  However, sometimes one might want to have an girder or deck with integral barriers that also follow the alignment.  In your case, one can model such a CIP girder as shown in the custom Inventor component shown in the first image.  Here, I modeled a parametric double T girder with integral barriers.  I added the following parameter and set it to True: MatchGirderTopSlopesToDeckSlopes

I also added parameters to control the left and right deck slopes (LeftDeckSlopeInPercentage and RightDeckSlopeInPercentage).

By setting the MatchGirderTopSlopesToDeckSlopes to True, InfraWorks will compute and pass the slope parameters to the custom girder, wherever they change.

In order to allow the integrated barriers to be placed above the road, in InfraWorks, I needed to manually set the custom girder's LeftWidth and RightWidth parameter to be wider than the width of the road and also needed to set the Girder Group's Girders In Plan parameter to "curved".  With these settings, InfraWorks is able to place and loft the sections along the custom girder with barriers above the roadway.

In this case, I modeled the deck with a thickness meant to represent the overlay thickness. I also set the deck parameter "Offset from" to "Top of road".  This lets InfraWorks know to not place the deck below the component road thickness.

While parametric decorations can be placed along roads, they are, at the moment, segmented, as shown in your images.  In my custom Inventor girder, I added the section geometry for simple rails.  These would then also be lofted along the alignment.  However, if I wanted to do this more correctly, I would have created an Inventor assembly (instead of the simple part), in order to have multiple materials.

I set the pier parameters to have simply supported spans, mostly to show how you might handle the bearings (where I increased the bearings to 2 per girder and manually adjusted their lateral offsets).  I also skewed the piers to illustrate that the lofted custom girders account for the skew angle. Of course, you might prefer to have the girders continuous.

The second image shows these girders in action in an InfraWorks model with a curved in plan alignment.  The purple color hints at a new dynamic clipping plane feature under development.  It makes it much easier to see "inside" the bridge, amongst other things.

The custom Inventor 2022 girder part file was also attached as a reference.

-Ara

 

[z0rge]

Ara, thank you a lot!!! I couldn't imagine that someone made so detail explanation and also made a part of my work. It's really amazing!!!

But I have few questions:

1) How to turn off the girders and put the deck under asphalt.

  

2) How to add cross frame to the deck? I thought it possible to add only to a girders.

And other problems with cross frames - now I have two types of cross beams metal and concrete and different length of span. It very difficult to change it by hand in case its long overpass. Do you have an idea how to do that? 

3) And may be you have an idea how to make CIP extrados girders like that?

I understand how to add curvatures to a girder via cross section and excel, but as I found it works only from bottom to top. And I do not understand how to flip this parameter.

Thanks in advance,

Alex.

[ara.ashikian]

Alex, when importing the custom component into InfraWorks, set it not as a deck type, but rather, a girder type.  This way, you can use the deck to control the overlay thickness.  

In the example of the custom girder I created, I chose to create a single girder with the two edge girders included.  Alternatively, one could have created the top flange and barriers as a deck component and each girder as separate girders.  Or even, one could use the custom girder as a deck as you had done.  However, InfraWorks requires at least one girder per span.  In such cases, you could use a small nominal girder say of 100x100mm cross section and simply delete it when you publish the model into Revit.

Custom diaphragms/cross frames can be created in Inventor with a lot of flexibility.  These are placed between pairs of girder s (or inside box girders).  It's beyond the scope of answering in this post, but one can create a diaphragm/cross frame that specifically adapts to the unique parameters of the girders.  InfraWorks extracts the girder parameters at the given station and lateral offset and skew angle and passes these values to the custom diaphragm/cross frame components.  In this way, they adapt automatically to cases where the girder geometries vary.

For simpler cases, one can also create a custom diaphragm and add it to InfraWorks as a generic object and place it in sets etc.  In such cases though, the user would need to adjust the parameters manually to reflect the desired layout.

As explained in my initial post, at the moment, if your custom girder uses the approach explained there (to allow for parts of the girder that fall outside the width of the road to be above the top of road), along with using slices to modify the parameters along the span, one can quite easily model the extradosed geometry shown in your image.  Using the same custom girder, for illustration purposes, I modified the girder slice barrier height parameter from 0.9m to 4.0m.  I also added another slice 15m away to control the variation in barrier height.  A more suitable custom component could be created to reflect the desired geometry of the extra dosed superstructure and then, varied in a similar way.

-Ara

[z0rge · Accepted solution]

Ali, thank you a lot for your detail answers. It's really helps and I'm very appreciate to you.

But last question)) - how you add two bearings to one girder?

[ara.ashikian]

The first time you select a bearing, you are selecting it at the group level.  As shown in the image below, you can change the number of bearings in that group and adjust the lateral offset.  The 2nd click allows you to choose the individual bearings in the group.  This is when you would adjust the lateral offsets.

-Ara

[z0rge]

Thank you a lot!!!

[KPerison]

Ara,

Once a new bridge template has been created, how would one copy or export that new template for use in a different IW model?

Not just apply it to other bridges in the same model?

[ara.ashikian]

From the Style Palette's Bridge Template tab, select the folder with your bridge template. Be default, it will be the one named Custom Templates.

Select the folder and near the top of the Style Palette's window, click on the save icon.  It will save the template, and all Inventor/Revit components.  In your other InfraWorks model, simply go to the Styles Palette and click on the import icon.  It will add the Inventor/Revit components and the bridge templates.

-Ara

[andre.micka]

Hello,

Thé post is very interesting.

Can you tell me if it is possible thé create custom decks, piles or abutments forum Revit ? Because I dont have inventor .

[ara.ashikian]

We introduced support for Revit families as parametric components a few releases ago, in addition to Inventor ones.  The workflow is nearly identical and one can create bridge templates in InfraWorks with those components. If desired, bridge templates using only custom Revit families, could be created.

Ara Ashikian, P.Eng.
PM Bridges / Civil Structures and InfraWorks

[Agence_LC]

Alex and Ara,

thank you very much, It was  very intersting questions and answers !

Ara, would you be kind enough to show and share with us the same process with a revit parametric girder example ?For all AEC collection owner who did not have Inventor it will be a tremendous help.

For me the most important process would be to be able to design a revit parametric girder wich lofts along the road profile and maybe how to deal with Excel slices to be able to desing a girder with variable depth and curved alignments.
kind regards,

Chris

[ara.ashikian]

There is no difference in the workflow when using Inventor vs Revit family based custom girders. Create your custom parametric girder as a Revit family, import it into InfraWorks. Apply it to selected bridge girders. Select an individual girder and add slices where you can change the parameters at any location along the girder. You can also use the Send to Spreadsheet workflow and in the girder worksheet, add columns to add slices along girders.